Tillis Delays Clarity Act Stablecoin Yield Text, Citing Uncertainty Over Markup Timing

Sen. Thom Tillis said he won’t release the stablecoin yield compromise text this week, pushing back a key step in the months-long fight between banks and crypto firms over the CLARITY Act.

Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) told Politico Thursday that he will likely no longer release the stablecoin yield compromise text for the Clarity Act this week, citing a need for clarity on when the Senate Banking Committee will schedule its markup of the broader bill. 

Tillis has been working with Sen. Angela Alsobrooks (D-Md.) to draft language aimed at resolving the central dispute in the bill: whether cryptocurrency exchanges should be permitted to offer annual percentage yield on stablecoin balances. Wall Street groups, led by major bank trade associations, argue that such programs could pull deposits out of traditional bank accounts at scale. Crypto firms, including Coinbase, counter that restricting stablecoin rewards stifles innovation and harms consumers. 

This story is an excerpt from the Unchained Daily newsletter.

The GENIUS Act, passed last year, already bars stablecoin issuers from paying direct interest to holders, but left the door open for third-party platforms like exchanges — a gap that banks have been lobbying to close. The White House has convened multiple closed-door sessions between the two sides since January without reaching a resolution.

The current Clarity Act draft bans rewards on idle stablecoin holdings while permitting yield tied to activity such as transactions. A source familiar with the negotiations told The Block on Thursday that substantive changes to that framework would be difficult to make at this stage.

The delay is the latest in a series of setbacks for the bill, which passed the House 294-134 in July 2025 but has been stalled in the Senate for nearly a year. 

Galaxy Research has said that if the Banking Committee does not clear the bill in April, the odds of passage in 2026 fall to near zero. A full Senate floor vote requires 60 votes, making Democratic support essential, and the August recess leaves almost no floor time once summer arrives. Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse recently shifted his timeline for passage from April to the end of May, signaling that even optimists in the industry are adjusting their expectations.